Monday, March 23, 2015 7:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago

It will be a blast from the past as Loyola hosts former conference mate from the 80s, Oral Roberts, on Monday, March 23, 2015—the 52nd anniversary of the greatest win in program history. ORU was a co-founding member of the Midwestern City Conference back in 1979, and played in the old MCC for eight seasons before dropping their conference affiliation and their basketball program entirely in the late 80s/early 90s. The program was re-instituted in 1993 under Head Coach Bill Self, followed by current SIU coach Barry Hinson. ORU is currently coached by Scott Sutton, son of legendary coach Eddie Sutton. Monday’s CBI quarterfinal match was determined by Loyola’s 62-59 win over Rider on Tuesday and ORU’s 91-87 home upset over UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday.

The Golden Eagles are a relatively small team, starting two forwards and three guards. In the frontcourt are 6’6” junior forward Brandon Conley and 6’7” senior forward Denell Henderson, who average 4.8 and 8.8 ppg respectively. Henderson is a very good shot blocker, notching 42 blocks on the season. Both are highly prone to fouls, as they’ve combined for 17 foul disqualifications. Freshman center Albert Owens, at 6’9” and 260 pounds, provides some additional height off the bench, but averages only 3.9 points and 2.5 boards in 12 minutes per game.

ORU gets the majority of their points and rebounds from their backcourt, led by 6’3” guard Ori Emegano. The Western Illinois transfer averages 18.5 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, and put up 30 points in ORU’s win over UCSB. About a third of Emegano’s points come from the free throw line, and he’s shot nearly 80% from the line in his 255 trips to the stripe. He also leads the team in steals, and has 39% accuracy on shots from distance. He should be a handful for the Ramblers both offensively and defensively.

For much of the season, Emegano was joined in the backcourt by 6’3” junior Korey Billbury, who led the team in rebounds with an astounding 7.4 per game while chipping in 14.4 points, but Billbury has been suspended for the past five games for unspecified violation of team rules. Bobby Word, a 6’4” outside shooting specialist (52 made threes on 38% shooting behind the arc), has been filling in for Billbury in the starting lineup, and ORU has won four out of the five games since. Five foot eleven sophomore guard Aaron Young is the other starter, and averages 5.4 points while shooting 44% behind the arc. Also seeing considerable time off the bench are Darian Harris (a 6’6” redshirt freshman guard who transferred from Creighton), Adrion Webber (a 6’5” senior guard), and 6’0” sophomore Jabbar Singleton.

For the season, ORU averages only 43% on field goal shooting, but without Billbury they’re a much higher percentage shooting team. ORU shot 56% from the field against UCSB, and shot over 50% from the field in three of the five games without Billbury, who shoots under 40%. Emegano is a befuddlingly streaky shooter—he’s had 16 games racking up 20 points or more (with ORU going 13-3 in those games) and eight games scoring 10 or fewer (seven losses and one win). Since Billbury’s suspension, Emegano has averaged 11.4 trips to the free throw line per game, and ORU is 9-2 on the season in games where he makes double-digit free throw attempts. The Golden Eagles are 5-10 on the road this year, with their best quality road win coming in overtime at Detroit.

If the Ramblers can dictate tempo, keep Emegano off the free throw line, and limit Word’s outside shooting, they should win against a short (and short-handed) Oral Roberts team that doesn’t play very well away from home. With a Loyola win over ORU, the CBI semifinals will be less than 48 hours later on Wednesday, March 25, with a re-seeded bracket.

Loyola game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... 322aaa.pdf

Oral Roberts game notes: http://www.oruathletics.com/pdf9/3323006.pdf

CBI Bracket: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... racket.pdf

TV/Streaming video: ESPN3 http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id ... la-Chicago

Vegas odds: Loyola by 6

Re: Billsbury's suspension. Saw a quote from ORU's coach that Billsbury is done for this season, so don't expect him back for the Loyola game.

Given ORU's lack of size and three guard offense, I hope Porter adjusts his defense and doesn't double team the post so much. In recent games the double team down low has led to the opponent getting a lot of open looks on threes when the post player kicks it out.

I also hope we win this game because I believe that Oral Roberts showed interest and was one of the schools in the running to take Creighton's MVC spot. Would be nice to represent the MVC in this one and prove to some that we were the right choice (if we haven't already...)

I read on some sports blog (Sorry, can't find the link.) that it costs $50,000 to host a CBI game, and $75,000 to host a semi-final game. Can this possibly be true? My Chicago-bred brain makes me suspicious. Who is getting all of this money?

We've had that discussion on several other threads. The organization that arranges the tournament gets the money, and they provide certain other benefits such as additional marketing, and some related expenses (organizational costs, governance, I'm assuming refs, but that may not be the case). It does not include team travel, etc. The cost of hosting is offset by revenues, so if we filled the place it could be a wash.

There is a significant metric (I believe) for team success-- cost per win. The most recent year available is 2012-13, Loyola's last in the Horizon. The figure is derived from dividing all men's basketball expenses by wins. In looking at the CBI teams from that year, all but two (Purdue and Richmond) of the eight teams in the 2013 CBI quarterfinals had lower season ending cost per win figures than Loyola had that season, despite LU having won 15 games that year. Santa Clara, the tournament winner who hosted two games, ended up having a cost per win figure from that season of $86,553.23 compared to Loyola's $157,624.67. Loyola and Santa Clara's overall men's basketball budgets are very similar (within $115k on budgets of over $2.2 million), so by measuring victories against costs, Santa Clara was significantly more productive. Eleven teams that year (including DePaul) spent over half a million dollars per win.

Compared to fixed costs already part of the cost of doing business (salaries, travel, equipment, insurance, training, membership fees, etc.) these tournament fees are relatively small, but extend the season, and can be looked at as increasing productivity, improving marketing and image, etc. The NCAA-held tournaments (they also own the NIT) do not have direct costs, but all institutions pay to be affiliated with the NCAA and share in the resulting revenue raised from TV and tickets. I could be wrong on some of the details here, but that is how I understand it.

It's interesting to note that ESPN3 will be carrying the Louisiana-Monroe v. Mercer CBI game on Monday. I wonder if they will pick us up.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

Went to a ORU at Loyola game in the early 80's at our, then home the UIC Pavillion. At that time the school's founder televangelist Oral Roberts was going on his weekly TV show and sobbing that if he didn't get more money for the University's hospital that the Lord was going to take him away. Loyola students at the game hoisted a bed sheet that said " Let Oral Die " .

Looks like it. Noticed there is now a link to Watch ESPN on the ESPN.com schedule.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

Nice! My Smartphone now has the game listed on ESPN3 as well! Will be great to actually watch the game!